Everybody, Lyss is one of my recovery heroines. I first featured Lyss in her recovery story on my blog in this post. If there is ever someone who just keeps pushing through, reminding me of our identity in Christ, reminding me that recovery is possible, it’s Lyss. Lyss has the most encouraging Instagram account when it comes to recovery. I know that she genuinely wants to share and love others, and I pray that this post for today’s ‘Mental Health Monday’ with Julia would be a BLESSING and would build you up and encourage you in the Lord.

Social media is quite the animal, isn’t it? It can be a sharp sword, used for good or evil, just like words. I am often incredibly encouraged by the people I follow on social media. Yet, I can’t ignore that there will always be a ‘downer’ side to it.

Lately I’ve been thinking: ‘Where does all the ‘bad stuff’ come from on social media?’ It’s not ‘social media’s fault.’

James 4:1-6 speaks to this in such an OUCH way.

James 4:1-6, ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.’ Oh, so the problem is with me. It’s mine. It’s my sinful heart, that is so prone to wander from my Lord. Remembering that my own heart is so deceitful and selfish, by nature, and that a change of heart is truly supernatural is constantly re-focusing me when it comes to social media.

After all of that I must make some social media confessions, because I want to be real. If Christ has released me from the darkness, why would I keep any of these struggles from you? Jesus Christ has already conquered sin, death, hell, and the devil. I’m not chained to those struggles anymore, and I definitely do not want to EVER paint a social media picture of someone that I’m not.

1 John 1:7-9, ‘But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’

Here it goes… (And yes, you can unfollow me after these revelations.)

(This recipe was SO simple, and it can be easily made gluten free. It’s from Emilie at Emilie Eats.)

Confession #1 – I often compare my photos to other blogger’s photos that have AMAZING pictures and 1000s of followers, and I think, ‘Wow, I stink at this. Might as well just give up and go bury myself in a hole.’

Reminder to Myself: Your standard is Christ, not men. Do it as unto the Lord.

Confession #2 – Argh… I don’t want to say this, but I feel that I must. I do comment on people’s Instagram posts or follow them in hopes that they will just follow me back. Am I actually caring and loving them like a person with an eternal soul and a God given purpose? Am I looking at them like Jesus Christ did and seeing someone who needs living water?

Confession #3 – My heart sinks when I get an UNFOLLOW. Somehow, I let it start to define my identity. I think, ‘What did I do? Did I offend them? AAaaahh!’

Instead this verse is a constant reminder of what my identity actually is.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’

Confession #4 – I’m often too scatter brained in the way I post, because I listen to my feelings more than loving God and serving others. I don’t think about encouraging about people as much as just pouring out ‘my’ feelings. . . It becomes entirely selfish, and that is not a pretty sight. If Jesus, the Lord of the world, served others, I pray that He might enable me to do the same.

Confession #5 – There are days that I really struggle to be intentional about posting, so I take a picture of something random. In a lot of ways, I know it has to do with doing EVERYTHING with all my might as unto the Lord.

Confession #6 – I forget the actual purpose of every social media post. Am I doing it for more followers or to show people the love of Jesus?

What is my goal when it comes to social media (even if I fail sometimes)?

Colossians 3:1-4, ‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.’

Maybe that sounds a little crazy or maybe you agree with it, but that verse gives incredible purpose and intention to my social media.

Am I doing it for the now?

I can’t take any of the ‘likes’ with me when I pass on from this world. Yet, I can do it for the Lord. I can do it for eternity, for each person with an eternal soul that follows me. I pray that God could use this weak little human to reflect a bit of His incredible love to save wretched sinners like me in every post.

I will fail, but I know that His grace is incredibly abundant. Will every ‘good’ Instagram post get me into heaven? No, it can’t. I know that Jesus’ Christ’s blood and righteousness has already done that in full. Yet, I’m just praying that I can serve Him more, serve others, and live out Jesus Christ till the day I die! 🙂

Confession #7 – I can also take one small subject and turn into a pretty big subject before sharing my WIAW eats every Wednesday… 😀

Confession #8 – I got the screen shots of all of my Instagram photos from the past week for this post, because I was too lazy to pull them off my phone) O_O

And thus begins a recap of what I’ve been eating lately. Lately, I’ve been eating because I need to eat, because I’m hungry. I’m not so focused on eating anymore. Of course, there are still some days where it is a struggle to take my mind off of being obsessed by food, but the more I realize that Jesus Christ is truly the living water that every soul needs, and He can fill me more than any calorie ever will. The calories are AMAZING, because they taste good, they nourish my body, and they fuel me for seeking Jesus even more.

SUCCESSFUL homemade peanut butter. Can you tell how excited that made me? *cue happy dance*

Remember, this WIAW with Jenn is not about judging what other people eat. Paul himself said in Colossians 2:16-23, ‘Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbathdays: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.’

Isn’t that amazing? Being in Christ Jesus gives me so much freedom to enjoy His good food. It gives me freedom to be released from food rules that were never put in Scripture, just narrow food rules that I made for myself, the same rules that kept me in bondage for so many years. Truly His burdne is light.

I was pretty excited to get bananas again this week. 🙂 I’ve been enjoying homemade peanut butter on them.

If you don’t have a Vitamix, it is an amazing investment. It can literally grind up anything. It was super fascinating watching peanuts turn into peanut butter.

(Chicken Soup that cooked ALL day long. It was from Ree Drummond’s cookbook!)

(Strawberry Cheesecake Oatmeal *find the recipe here* for breakfast on Sunday and Monday… I had this cream cheese that needed to be used. I’m thankful that God has so providentially put many other foodie bloggers in my life that have taught me about recipe development and challenged me, by example, to get creative and conquer my fears in the kitchen. My photography could still use a lot of help.)

I received these delicious, creamy, crunchy nut butters from Fastachi as compensation for writing a blog post about them. I reached out to them, and I was INCREDIBLY grateful that they said, ‘Sure!’ Well it didn’t take long for me to form an opinion. They are SO good. I’ve tried the hazelnut butter, and it’s so creamy and buttery tasting with a little bit of crunch. They’re also a family business, and I love supporting family businesses.

I was so pleasantly surprised by these, and I had never heard of the brand before finding them on the internet a couple weeks ago. I’m definitely going to be thinking about trying some of their other butters that I couldn’t get at the store. Hazelnuts are my favorite nut, and I’ve never had a hazelnut butter before. I just can’t buy lots of them, because they aren’t exactly the cheapest nut butter. However, they are delicious, so I think you would DEFINITELY love trying them at least once.

Apples are one of my favorite fruits, because there are so many varieties, and they seem to be in ‘season’ all year around.

On Valentine’s Day after church and our prayer time, our family came home and enjoyed watching the old Sherlock Holmes. This ice cream was part of the movie watching snacks.

Georgie knows what she is talking about when it comes to protein bars. Square bars are … um… like eating a candy bar, that’s a protein bar. Georgie actually included them in her ‘7 Best Packaged Protein Bars’ rundown. 🙂 Now, I just need to not eat all of them in the next week. 🙂

I’m thankful that God chose to put me in a country where we have access to so many different varieties of food. Even when I was in Uganda in 2014, I realized just how blessed we are to have different kinds of food to eat every day. I love that each country has its own ethnic cuisine. It is such a testimony to God’s love for variety. I’m grateful that I can go miles around the world and find another brother or sister in Christ and feel like family in a matter of minutes because of our bond in Christ. It’s an incredible gift from God.

There is truly no boundary that Christ Jesus can not cross. Galatians 3:28, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’

Of course, I have to leave you with something to make you smile… He misses my sister too, so I had to post this on Instagram for her to see.

I LOVE Mondays. First of all, I get to write on subjects like, ‘Why the Mirror Lies’ as I just passed my mirror in our bedroom before going to do morning devotions and link up with Katie to share some marvelous thoughts.

What are some of the other reasons I I love Mondays? I love them because:

1. My dad’s a pastor, so Sunday is a wonderful and exhausting day for us. The day always starts with a few of us going to a nursing home service in our local town, then our first service, and on the first 3 Sundays, we always have a second service mostly focused on singing together and praying. Then, we usually have someone over for dinner. That = a WONDERFUL day of fellowship + a VERY TIRING day.
2. Because Sunday is tiring, Monday is VERY quiet at our house. It’s a perfect day for letting your body physically rest and recover.

3. Monday is kind of a breather in our house before the work week kicks off, so in general it’s a day to just cook a bit, spend time with family, read, and write BLOG posts! 🙂

Today I’m sharing one of the closest subjects to my heart that is one of the biggest struggles for someone who struggles with body image.
That is THE MIRROR.

The mirror is one of the most subjective objects in our house. It often doesn’t tell you the REAL truth.

The mirror lies, often, to me.

On the days I struggled most I would often go to the mirror to tell me whether I looked good or not. I looked to the mirror to define the truth of who I was, of what I looked like, of whether I looked good or not.

For me the mirror defined my:

1. Beauty
2. Worth
3. Fitness

And the list could go on, but I’m not going to go on, because my point I’m going to make next is that the mirror lies.

The mirror is so subjective. It does not remind me that I am:

1. A child of God (Galatians 3:26, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”)

2. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (Psalm 139:I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.)

3. More than a conqueror through Him that loved me. (Romans 8:37: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.)

It also doesn’t take into account the ups and downs that my body goes through because my body isn’t a machine, but an body designed by God . It doesn’t remind me that ‘Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ (Proverbs 31)

In so many words the mirror is not evil, but if I struggle with body image, it lies to me. It doesn’t preach God’s truth to me, so my goal over the next year is to:

1. Listen to the Mirror LESS.
2. Listen to the Word of God and the truth of Who I am in Christ MORE.

Thoughts? Do you have a love/hate relationship with the mirror like I do?

I could not resist sharing some of my favorite links, especially since I just took two ‘Winnie the Pooh’ quizzes. Who else likes ‘Winnie the Pooh’ as much as I do/did?

This week I want to share some of my favorite recovery posts, quizzes, and a few recipes that we tried this week that were absolutely amazing! 🙂

Recovery/Body Image Posts

‘Your Weight Does not Define Your Self Worth.’ – Megan is one of the most honest, transparent bloggers I’ve ever encountered. She’s willing to share about the ups and downs of her health journey, and this post really hit me straight in the forehead with the reminder that that number does not and will never DEFINE who I am.

Food Rules – Kaila seriously hit the nail on the head with this one when she shared many of the ‘self imposed’ food rules we put on ourselves. How many of us find ourselves ignoring our own bodies in favor of trying to fit into everybody else’s food rules? Every body is different. Every person is unique. You will smile. You will chuckle a bit in this post and find yourself nodding in agreement!

Nothing is Ever Wasted – I absolutely love this blogger. She has a deep relationship with Jesus, and that SHINES in the way she talks about eating disorder recovery. In this post she reminded me that even my struggles with body image and food were not wasted. God is and has been making something beautiful for the past 6 or 7 years that I have struggled, and everyday, I am amazed that He heals and makes all things new.

DISC Personality Test – I do not believe at all in fitting people into ‘personality’ boxes, but I find some personality tests fun to take. It helps me learns more about others and a bit about myself.

Favorite Recipes

Soft and Chewy Brownie Protein Bars – You HAVE to go try these out. They are SUPER easy to make and a really filling, delicious snack. I can eat 2 or 3 of them (They’re just that good.) Peanut butter is a good accompaniment.

My link – Gluten Free and Dairy Free Peach Crisp – I guess this is a bit of a shameless plug for one of my recipes, but I wouldn’t post it if it hadn’t gotten really good reviews from my family, including the members who aren’t gluten and dairy free!

And if you follow Julia’s blog, here is what is happening with her Instagram. Please follow her blog! She is an amazing blogger with an enormous spirit of joy and hopefulness, and I really love her! – ‘Bye Bye Instagram Vlog.’

The Life of the Writer

I live in the beautiful state of Colorado where 14ers are to give you all the sore legs you need, amazing skiing, plenty of other runners, glorious sunsets, majestic elk herds, and peaceful country roads with clear air.

Go Back in Time!

Go Back in Time!

I am a very ordinary girl. I’m 21, but if you met me, you wouldn’t believe me. I am passionate about girls finding true beauty in Christ. I love peanut butter, icecream, and salad. My hobbies are cooking, baking, sharing laughs and tears with others, and sharing the fullness of joy that Christ has put in me. I love reading other blogs, and I hope that this will be a place where you can find encouragement, recipes, smiles, and joy. Click here to read more about me...